Beginning his set with the same explosive run of tracks that introduce his latest album, London Town, Kano ducked and weaved onto the stage, slapping hands with the adoring fans and flashing his smile all around the venue whenever the choruses came around. Kano’s first album, Home Sweet Home, won him a legion of fans, crossover success, a MOBO and a Brit Nomination for best newcomer. This new record can only serve to bring the MC, who got his first break with the song Boys and Girls on pirate radio, even greater recognition.

“When I was about seventeen or eighteen everyone else was spitting 16 bar rhymes,” he explains to me before the gig, “but I wrote whole songs that spoke about things everyone could relate to, keeping the edge that the MCs had.”

The lively and tense Buss It Up, recorded with Jamaican dancehall legend Vybz Kartel, brought waves of hands into the air, but the track signifies more than that for Kano. “The whole musical culture of Jamaica really inspires me. Music is everywhere there, and that attracted me to perform, seeing the reactions music can give. That kind of thing is around in the UK too, and I get the best feeling when I hear my song blasting out of someone’s car, or kids playing it on their phones in the street.” There’s a strong Jamaican influence - the song Fightin’ the Nation references the Junior Marvin track Police and Thieves, which was once covered by the Clash in their early days.

Feel Free, a track recorded with Damon Albarn, was another standout and is at the heart of the album. “It’s definitely a special track for me,” Kano added. The song’s eerie soundscape mirrors much of Albarn’s best work with Gorillaz. Kano describes his experience of performing with Albarn and a whole host of established African artists at Glastonbury as inspirational. “I got to hear music I would never otherwise get hold of. It made me think that there’s so much more that could be added to my sound. To be a part of something with such respected artists was really important to me.”

Perhaps the highlight of the gig for many, especially for the fourteen year-olds wearing Nike caps and white plastic rosaries around their necks in an unconscious traditionalist parody of bling (or maybe they were just cheap?), was the single, This is the Girl, featuring Craig David. Kano’s backing band finally got into full swing here, raising the chorus up on a precarious balance of feedback, ride cymbal trills, and screams and whoops from the audience.

After a long set which held the audience in rapture, the gig came to an end with an encore of Me and My Microphone, a song recorded with Kate Nash back when the chart-topper was just a MySpace footnote to Lily Allen’s rising star. It’s Kano’s take on “old school hip-hop in its truest form”, but with the exciting taint of harsher London accents. The song brought an excitable bounce to the gig’s climax, encouraging the rapper to hang around shaking hands with as many people as could barge their way to the front.

This talented MC may not have found his niche yet, since too many of his tracks rest on an uneasy balance between American mainstream hip-pop and the smoother edges of grime. But he is an artist who thrives on fresh ideas, hard work performance. The strength of this album and Kano’s genuine belief in his talents as an artist could take him very far indeed.